c1735 Horace Tilton House

Hello all,
I have made the leap from lumberjocks to here. This is almost opposite to what happened in real life for me. I spent 9 years renovating my house and in the last 2 years or so as I started having time, I picked up woodworking.

Anyway here is my house. It is the Horace Tilton house in Wakefield, MA. It was built around 1735 and is on the national register of historic places. My wife and I purchased it on 4/2/99 for $223k. (Good price for Boston area) The whole back part of the house was on a dry fieldstone foundation and was in rough shape. We knew that we were going to need to remove it and start over. The back part of the house was a cobblers shed that they simply attached to the house when they did not want to cook in the fireplace anymore. The beams were rotted, and the kitchen ceiling was so low that I could not stand upright in 1/2 the kitchen. So we called all our buddies and had it down in 1 weekend. We were weathertight in October of that year and completed by the following summer. My wife was a trooper, cooking on a hot plate and washing dishes in the tub for a year.

This past October we finished the last 4 rooms (including my workshop). I will post the interior pictures later (not hogging the main page 3 projects)

Thanks for looking

PS you will see that I have another project sitting in the driveway. When Martin creates AutoJocks I will post how that build went.

PPS The door with the bulls-eye glass is still installed but the door is open on the new front picture.

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5 comments so far

quite a piece of work tim . you did a great job of it . in the 70s i owned a historic home in tolland ct. i had to get thier approval for about everything short of mowing the lawn . is that something youve had to do in mass. as well ?

Very nice work. I love that clear cedar siding. I couldn’t get that down here in Texas, so had to settle with the knotty grade. In Texas it has to have a rustic look. You got a great looking place there.